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How Only Apple Can Kill The iPhone

Sigh. We live in an age where fake news and misinformation are running wild; where rumor is disguised as news, and where ridiculous opinion is disguised as future policy.

There is no such thing as mainstream media. Fox News has more viewers and readers than WSJ, WaPo, or NYT’s combined. Misinformation and malformed considerations are what constitute mainstream media. Take The Wall Street Journal. Please.

What Killed Nokia?

One thing I’ve learned in nearly 15 years of articles and reviews about all things Apple– over 1,000 since 2004– is that anyone can argue anything but that doesn’t make it worthy of reading or consideration.

Take The Wall Street Journal. And John D. Stoll. Please.

Polaroid. Walkman. Palm Pilot. iPhone?

The implication in the headline is obvious and a paradox. All three of the former are dead. Apple’s iconic iPhone thrives. But so did those dead products. What happened?

iPhone killed them all.

In fact, Apple’s iPhone is responsible for many deaths in the past decade. Microsoft Phone and Windows Phone. Nokia. Most of the technology giants in the smartphone industry have been destroyed. A few have been resurrected as golden oldie brands, but iPhone and Samsung are the industry’s dominant leaders.

What will kill iPhone?

We can argue that iPhone killed Palm Pilot, or Nokia, or Microsoft Phone, but the reality is this. Those company’s did not see what iPhone was and would become. They reacted slowly and with arrogance and as iPhone’s momentum grew– and Google’s Android entered the market– all others were doomed.

As demand for Apple’s signature product starts to wane, now is the time for CEO Tim Cook to find the next act

This is arrogant armchair quarterbacking at its worst. John Stoll is a business industry writer so he is good at turning a phrase, coming up with and fleshing out controversial ideas on various industry players, but he seems to have little understanding about what it takes to run a large enterprise, let alone navigate the technological and market minefields that Apple walks through each day (with greater success than WSJ or their writers).

Yes, without question, Apple and Tim Cook are working toward the next act, the next great thing; even with the understanding that iPhone might be the last great thing ever on planet earth. Critics laughed at Watch, yet that accessory is a bigger business for Apple now than iPod ever was. The Mac launched in early 1984 but sales now are greater than at any time during Steve Jobs reigns.

With the success of the iPhone since it arrived on the scene, the next big thing has been harder to find. Apple has had no breakthrough on TV, a modest success with its watch, a stumble in music and a lot of speculation concerning its intentions for autonomous cars or creating original programming.

Modest succcess? Watch, as a business, is larger already than iPod ever was, yet the music player that defined Apple beyond the Mac was killed– almost– by another Apple product. iPhone.

Only Apple can kill the iPhone.

How?

First, by neglect. That’s what happened to Nokia, Motorola, HTC, Microsoft and others who paid no attention to what Apple brought to the industry. The engineers at Google’s Android project saw the future and made a massive sea change in the industry that washed the others out of business. Apple could be toppled by another product of iPhone-like capacity in history. But what?

Second, by design. That’s what happened to iPod. Apple killed it (almost; iPod touch is still around but you’ll have to hunt to find them at an Apple Store because what the iPod was is contained in every iPhone on earth). Apple has the capability and the historical precedent to recognize technological changes and then drive and shape the market into its own direction.

Go down the list. That is exactly what Apple does best. iPod, iTunes, iTunes Music Store, iPhone, App Stores, iPad, Watch, et al. If the iPhone as we know it today eventually dies, it will because, 1) Apple neglected it and the future, or, 2) Apple killed it with something better and even more insanely great.

5G? Meh!

About Bambi Brannan

I work in public relations in San Francisco, California. I truly love my Mac, my iPhone, my husband, both of my pet fish, high heels, dinner out, and chocolate. Not always in that order, of course. Read more of my articles here.